For consumers, however, the bill provides several simple services, like free access to credit scores, limits on unorthodox mortgage products and the creation of two new bureaucracies – the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an oversight arm of the Federal Reserve; and the Office of Financial Literacy, an agency geared toward education.

The bill, which is expected to be signed into law by President Obama this week, will have an incalculable indirect impact on consumers becau

This year we spent about $4. The lights included with our decade-old three-foot Christmas tree died sometime between New Year’s 2009 and Thanksgiving 2009. As I combed the hardware store aisle in search of a short string of lights, I wondered if this were the year to step up the Christmas displays.

Actually, I’d probably get kicked out of that gearhead meeting. Because while I do have a NASCAR viewing problem, I’m among that sector of fans who typically only watches the final 50 laps of a given race.

The Daytona 500 is the exception. I watched most of Sunday’s race. But not because I was riveted by the crumbling asphalt delays and 200 laps of follow-the-leader.

BP is considering a switcheroo, and as much as I’d like to say the American public isn’t so dumb that they can’t figure out that Amoco and BP are the same folks, rebranding their U.S. gas stations as Amoco might just work.

Remember ValuJet? You can still fly it: it’s now known as one of America’s busiest airlines, AirTran.

How about that carcinogen pusher Philip Morris? The company’s cancer sticks now sell under the Altria banner.

What about those big, bad Blackwater security bullies? Look up Xe Services.